Tying into the (momentary) Big Event, One World Under Doom, this 5-issue mini-series let Rainbow Rowell return to some of subplots left dangling at the conclusion of her stint as writer of Runaways.
As far as the tie-in angle, Doom, now ruling the world, decides he can't have a bunch of robots wearing his face running around, doing whatever. So he sends more Doombots out to bring in all the rogue Doombots. Including the one looking after the cast, as Chase was hauled off into the timestream by a future version of Gert, while Nico is in a complete funk minus the Staff of One, which Karolina took with her when she went (back) into space.
Doom's bots show up to collect Doombot and a typically disorganized Runaways fight occurs. It's kind of silly. Gert at one point breaks a Doombot by hitting it with a car. Not even hard enough to trigger the airbags! What kind of shoddy labor is Doom using for these things?
Chase returns suddenly, grouchy and scarred and a bigger dick than usual. Nico finds out she has magic besides the Staff. Or Gert has magic Nico can use, if she's holding Gert's hand and says what she wants to have happen with sufficient desperation? They don't figure it out by the end of the mini-series. Karolina returns, minus the Staff. Alex shows up in the Doc Justice outfit he stole, revealing he's been spying on them for some time.
As always, no one kicks Alex's ass.
Doombot is the core of everything, debating what to do. It is meant to be an extension of Doom's will. Doom's will is it turn itself in. It's programmed to believe children are important. Here is a group of children, disorganized and barely capable of sustaining themselves. Doombot would never go so far as to describe them as friends, but feels a responsibility it can't decide how best to honor. Stay and look after them, or turn itself in so Doom doesn't attack them?
The decision is made easy by some big reveal on the news that Doom was powering his magic with the suffering of children's souls. Prompting Doombot to conclude Doom's forgone his own principles, so it rejects Doom. Kind of feels like an easy out, but if Ryan North actually used that as a plot point in One World Under Doom then it was fair game. Although I think it makes North hopelessly naive if he figures that would get any outcry from politicians. Look at the dipshits in my craphole of a country. Kids get shot at schools and it's all, "thoughts and prayers!"
Oh man, are the citizens of the Marvel Universe now actually better people than those of us here in the real world? Terrifying to contemplate.
Artwise, Cunniffe does their level best to maintain a consistent feel. There's a heavy use of purple and orange, as much of the story seems to take place in the evening or at night. Like the sun is about to set on this whole little thing the cast has going. Either their group is going to be blown apart figuratively by Doombot's abduction, Chase's attitude, or Nico's feeling of worthlessness, or their group is going to be blown apart literally, by armies of Doombots.
That said, the book has 3 different pencilers for 5 issues. Casagrande is already giving way to Roberta Ingranata partway through issue 2, then Lee Ferguson shows up in issue 4. Ingranata's work is more angular than Casagrande's. Everyone looks sharper-edged and the designs are simplified, there's less shading. It seems rushed, which makes sense if they were asked to fill-in part of a mini-series. Ferguson's characters look closer to Casagrande's, though there's more exaggeration in expressions. Also, he likes using circular panels. Maybe just to break up the layouts, I couldn't tell any significance to when he used them.
Not much gets resolved. Chase unilaterally blew up Gert's time machine, so I guess whatever magic thing she's got going with Nico is her new gimmick. There's no reckoning for that, or any discussion of what Chase got up to in the future that's left him acting like a bigger dick than usual. He still treats Victor like an outsider any time things get tense, even though Victor's been part of the group for much longer than he wasn't by this point. At least the rest of the cast push back against the attitude for once.
It's honestly surprising I like Runaways as much as I do, given how much I despise Chase, and find both Nico and Gert periodically exhausting.
Karolina is back, from outer space. As usual, there's no discussion of what went on out there. It's like when they need to write an actress out of a TV show for a while because she had a baby. "Oh, she went to space. She'll be back."
Alex is also just, back, again. Spying on his alleged friends, condescending to them and providing no reason to trust he's any less the dumbest person who thinks he's smart I've ever seen. He keeps criticizing them for not having plans or contingencies. Which, true, but he never offered one himself. I'm sure whatever he did have involved deeming someone (other than himself, of course) expendable.
No comments:
Post a Comment